Voelz Chandler: Similarities of painters make show exceptional

Published November 3, 2006 at midnight

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Despite the fact that Dave Yust and Karen McClanahan are two artists whose work is respected in this region, the promise of shows by both at + Gallery seemed, at first, a potentially risky venture.

After all, they take such alternately similar and yet varied approaches to the process.

But in the end, painting, pure and simple, wins out, in one of the most striking pair of exhibitions in a season full of striking exhibitions.

For one thing, both artists are smart about their geometry, their ability to mix the angular with the organic in the exploration of space. And then there is matter of color: Yust and McClanahan both work in ways that focus on the issue of perception and how one color affects another.

As for generational differences, consider it just a fact of life. Yes, Yust has been painting for more than 40 years, and teaching at Colorado State University since the mid-1960s. His work has evolved from three-dimensional paintings (one of which, from 1974, is in the current + show, a real treat) to a current quest to find the meaning in the sleek form of the catenary curve.

And, yes, McClanahan graduated from Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design in 2001, and just this past spring earned a master of fine arts degree from Hunter College. But she began exhibiting her work as an undergrad, paintings that form the basis of her search to find the relationship between forms and colors. From day one, she was able to create work with an edge, an almost scary precision that continues today.

So in the new paintings in "Pitch Shift," McClanahan is clear about her use of various devices - from angles to curves - to signal various aspects of each painting. And, she chooses different applications of paint - from matte to saturated to really brushy - to accentuate the optical effects in different segments in a painting. In Vast (after Snowblind), for instance, she creates a square in which the darker blue, in that lined application, hovers over a larger field of lighter blue, separated, in two directions, by the hints of a brown line (and then is twisted in terms of perspective, by a partial frame in brown). Such technical experiments run through her work here.

The same is true of Yust, who in the paintings and monotypes of the "Chromaxiologic Inclusion Series" presents large round and elliptical works in which segments follow the shape of several catenary curves, set off by the use of pale gradations of purple interacting with other colors. A tour de force is a grid of nine small monotypes with handcoloring that result in one of the most near-kinetic and beautiful walls in Denver.

Beyond the synchronicity demonstrated by the pairing of Yust and McClanahan, and the fine results, the + Gallery project points up something else: It's time for someone here to give Dave Yust a proper retrospective.

In late 2003 into early 2004, three venues showed his work in a concerted effort to make a statement about the growth of his work: paintings and works on paper from 1966 through 2003 at the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, monotypes at the nearby storefront Improv Contemporary Art, and a show that pulled from both ventures at Regis University's old O'Sullivan Art Center.

Some smart gallery or museum needs to come forward and put this all together. And remember to consider the same thing for McClanahan, a couple of decades from now.

BY THE NUMBERS: The Museum of Contemporary Art/Denver scooped up $340,000 from its recent annual gala, Dinner With David. Pegged to a visit from London-based architect David Adjaye, who designed MCA's new building, the event also was the scene of fast and furious bidding for a small but select clutch of artwork. Artists included Kyra Walker, Joel- Peter Witkin, Dale Chisman and Todd Eberle, whose large-scale C-print Lost House showed an intimate interior detail of a space designed by Adjaye.

Pitch Shift: New Paintings and Chromaxiologic: Inclusion Series

• What: Work by Karen McClanahan and Dave Yust, with "Chronicles," new paintings by Andrew Long

• Where and when: + Gallery, 2350 Lawrence St.; through Nov. 18

• Information: 303-296-0927; www.plusgallery.com

Chandlerm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2677.

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